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Philosophy
Comaptability Priorities
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Perks define your character: without investing perks in a tree, strategies tied to that tree are likely to fail.Frostfall
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Roleplaying: Your character has a role, and feels qualitatively different from characters who take on different roles. No more heavy armored sneaky battlemage master smith alchemist enchanters.
iNeed OR RND (both?)
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Realism: Arrows kill you in two hits if you're not wearing armor. The difference between no armor, light armor and heavy armor should be noticeable right from the start. You can kill one wolf while naked and armed (swords are made of metal - wolves, mostly water), but two will eat you. Don't even start with us on bears and sabercats. Blocking is important. You probably shouldn't use a bow in melee combat. It's harder to fight when you're tired.Falskaar
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The world will be mostly deleveled. Quest trigger limits and other means will be used to try to steer players toward level-appropriate challenges, because "deleved world" shouldn't mean "oops, you died!" Delving into ruins, travelling at night and getting farther away from civilization will all increase your danger. Dragons will attack cities with much higher priority until level 30, at which point the game will start commonly throwing them at you when you're out on your own.Wyrmstooth
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"Quick" "Save" and "Load" are not words of power. A character in each of the three roles (warrior, thief, mage) ought to be able to get through the whole game without reloading. Not that it'll be easy. Especially not for low-level mages. But it should be doable, with a little luck.
Moonpath to Eleswyr
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If you take a perk, you should be able to feel it. Taking a perk should mean a qualitative difference in a character, not just that a number in a spreadsheet went up. Or, if it is just making a number in a spreadsheet go up, it should be a big enough shift that you notice it while playing. This doesn't mean all perks will be equally powerful - some perks are still weak, because they're requirements for a much stronger perk later down the line. A few perks will still just be number-movers, but only when necessary for game mechanics (such as in the enchanting and smithing trees).
A proccer like ReProccer (honestly we'll want this for dev)
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You can't be good at everything. Beyond perks being needed to do most things (you can't pick locks without a perk in thievery), whether you improve health ("Brawn"), Stamina ("Finesse") or Magicka ("Spellpower") at level up will influence how good you are at hitting things with hammers, shooting them with arrows or scattering your enemies with fire and lightning. To be a truly great archmage, you must forsake the physical realm for the power of your mind - and if you spend all your time bulking up, you might have some trouble sneaking around. What's more, levels of Brawn, Finesse and Spellpower will unlock powerful perks on the Potential tree.
Convenient Horses
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Go adventuring! Players shouldn't be incentivized to stay in town and just level up their alchemy, smithing and enchanting. They should have a reason to get out and do stuff! Even if it's only level-appropriate stuff. Heck, even if it's just collecting Alchemy ingredients and mining.
Improved Breezehome
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Combat should be fast, dangerous, and deadly. Power attacks kill things, blocking is vital, and it's always a good idea to have fireballs up your sleeve. Different enemies will require different strategies to kill. Mages are hard to kill with spells, but a dagger from the shadows will take them down. Draugr are nearly immune to blunt force and arrows. Dwemer constructs are heavily armored, but susceptible to lightning. Mammoths are deadly in melee, but enough arrows will kill them. Falmer are nearly impossible to sneak up on. Ancient vampires are powerful and strong, but susceptible to fire and silver. Trolls are tough and regenerate quickly, but are susceptible to fire. Higher-level enemies will destroy you if you don't have strong and varied defenses, and a way to take them down quickly.
Enhanced Character Edit
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Combat against bosses, however, shouldn't be fast: it should still be dangerous and deadly. Dragons, dwarven centurions, lord harkon, Miraak - when you're finally the last one standing against foes like these, it should feel like an accomplishment.
Civil War Overhaul (do this internally?)
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Alternate Start: Live Another Life
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Unofficial Patches
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Wet and Cold
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Graphical Mods
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